Marley the Magnificent

This is Marley. He is our two-year-old black lab mix. He does not have Mabel's voracious appetite, but he can hold his own. In his first year of life he ate my glasses, dental nightguard, shoes, picture frames, many books and lots of clothes.

More than destroying expensive items, Marley really loves to make social visits around the neighborhood. Of course he is not allowed to roam free. We have a fenced backyard with plenty of room to run. Marley spends his leisure time digging very large holes under the fence. Or literally prying the boards off of the fence. This allows him to saunter off and make his rounds.

Once I found him down the street at a party. The neighbors were hanging around a fire pit in the driveway drinking beer and shooting the breeze. Marley was sitting amidst the partygoers, just chilling. It took him a couple minutes to notice me. Then he looked surprised, but pleased, to see me at the party. Like, "Hey, you know these guys too? Sweet." I had to drag him home. The neighbors were disappointed. "Can't he stay longer? He knows tricks!" Which, if that is true, it's news to me. I busted my behind trying to simply teach him sit and stay. Obedience class was a weekly exercise in humiliation (for me, Marley loved it). If Marley knows tricks, he's seriously messing with me. Traitor.